Cell Injury - Handorf

Question 1

What is atrophy?

Answer 1

decrease in the the size and function of a cell or organ

Question 2

What is hypertrophy?

Answer 2

increase in size of a cell caused by augmented functional demand or hormonal stimulation

Question 3

What is hyperplasia?

Answer 3

Enlargement of a tissue or organ due to increase in number of cells.

Question 4

What is polypoidy?

Answer 4

cell has three or more copies of haploid chromosomal sets. Can occur naturally (megakaryocytes) or as adaptation or malignancy.

Question 5

What is metaplasia?

Answer 5

change of a differentiated cell type to a different cell type

Question 6

What is dysplasia?

Answer 6

alteration of size, shape, and organization of the cellular components of a tissue characterized by abnormalities in size and shape of cells; enlargment, irregularity, and hyperchromasia of nuclei; disorderly arrangement of cells in epithelium; and a preneoplastic condition

Question 7

Who is the father of cellular pathology?

Answer 7

Rudolph Virchow

Question 8

Does mesenchymal metaplasia often lead to neoplasia?

Answer 8

no

Question 9

Does epithelial metaplasia often lead to neoplasia?

Answer 9

Yes.

Question 10

What type of metaplasia can smoking induce in lung tissue? (what cell type to cell type?)

Answer 10

Smoking can induce epithelial metaplasia of pseudocolumnar ciliated respiratory epithelium to squamous epithelium

Question 11

What type of metaplasia can HPV cause in cervical tissue?

Answer 11

Epithelial metaplasia of cervical columnar epithelium to squamous epithelium

Question 12

What are reserve cells in cervical epithelial metaplasia?

Answer 12

They are the first cells that change at the base of the epithelial surface along the basement membrane that eventually replace the columnar cells with metaplastic adult squamous cells

Question 13

What type of metaplasia occurs with acid reflux or GERD?

Answer 13

Epithelial metaplasia of squamous epithelium to columnar epithelium.

Question 14

Is dyplasia usually preneoplastic?

Answer 14

Almost always

Question 15

What three common intracellular pigments are brown?

Answer 15

iron compounds, lipofuschin, melanin

Question 16

What is the principle iron storage form? Can it be seen with normal microscopy?

Answer 16

ferritin. It is a hollow protein loaded with iron that is NOT visible under a routine light microscope. Can be seen with special staining techniques though.

Question 17

Ferritin is a type of iron storage compound in the body. What is the second most common? Is it visible under a light microscope? What is it made of?

Answer 17

Hemosiderin. Yes it is visible under light microscope. It consists of intracellular granules of iron storing cells - autophagosomes loaded with semidigested ferritin molecules.

Question 18

What can increase iron stores?

Answer 18

hemochromatosis - disorder in which too much iron is absorbed and retained
Hemosiderosis - iron overload due to other systemic or local causes.

Question 19

What is the Prussian Blue reaction?

Answer 19

It stains iron blue, useful for making it visible under a light microscope

Question 20

What happens when someone gets a black eye?

Answer 20

The trauma causes bleeding into tissues. The blood pigments are left behind to undergo digestion, storage and uptake by histiocytes and the iron is visible, causing a brown/purple appearance

Question 21

What is lipofuschsin?

Answer 21

a “wear and tear” pigment, polymer of oxidized lipids that is present in long-lived cells. It has no known use. Often appears near nuclei and is brown in color

Question 22

What is melanin? What is its primary purpose?

Answer 22

Melanin is a naturally occuring pigment present in the basal layer of skin, retina and some other ectodermal tissues. It serves to absorb harmful UV light and is a useful free radical “sink”.
Can become a malignant melanoma in neoplastic pathologies.

Question 23

What is a common black pigment? What is the condition called?

Answer 23

Carbon. Anthracosis, and it is permanent once ingested.

Question 24

What is the main route carbon is inappropriately taken in?

Answer 24

Carbon particulates are often inhaled through the lungs.

Question 25

Is antharcosis harmful?

Answer 25

typically no, but can be if the carbon is inhaled with other substances, such as silica.

Question 26

What type of cell generally picks up and holds the carbon?

Answer 26

histiocytes

Question 27

What is the most common type of pathologic calcification?

Answer 27

Dystrophic type. It is generally a localized process, usually related to some tissue injury when plasma calcium levels are normal.

Question 28

What is the less common form of pathologic calcification?

Answer 28

Metastatic type calcification has a generalized process in which there may be calcification of many tissues. It is generally related to a more systemic derangement of Ca and phosphate levels.

Question 29

What color due calcium salts stain using a routine hematoxylin and eosin stain?

Answer 29

dark purple

Question 30

How can dystrophic calcification be clinically useful?

Answer 30

In breast tissue, local damage will cause a minor amount of dystrophic calcification, which is visible under x-ray (mammograms) and can hint that there is some sort of carcinoma or local damage.

Question 31

What is hydropic swelling?

Answer 31

dffuse waterlogging of the entire cell. It is an early and often reversible indicator of cell damage. On stained slides it appears as the filling of cytoplasm with white/blank space.

Question 32

What are the two significant lipids that may accumulate in cels under abnormal conditions?

Answer 32

triglycerides and cholesterol

Question 33

What is xanthelasma?

Answer 33

soft, yellow, orange-like plaques on the eyelids or medial canthus that are associated with abnormal lipid deposition of low density lipoproteins (the bad ones)

Question 34

What does lipid accumulation look like under microscope?

Answer 34

Treating tissues for slide preparation dissolved the lipids so what you see are the white/empty areas lipids once were.

Question 35

What does triglyceride accumulation look like grossly? What is it called? Where is it most common?

Answer 35

Grossly seen as yellow, greasy deposits whose cells are engorged with TG droplets and vacuoles. Also known as “steatosis”. It is most common in liver, but can also be seen in heart, skeletal muscle, and kidney cortex.

Question 36

What is Kwashiorkor?

Answer 36

Steatosis of liver due to malnutrition related to low protein/high carb diet.

Question 37

Is cholesterol accumulation pathological?

Answer 37

Depends where it occurs. In tissues such as the aorta, it is deadly.
On the other hand, cholesterolisis of the gall bladder (foamy histiocytes on microscopy) is harmless because of location.

Question 38

What types of carbohydrate accumulations are there?

Answer 38

Glycogen or discrete carbohydrate manifestations in the CNS

Question 39

What can lead to glycogen accumulation?

Answer 39

Glycogen may increase intracellularly in conditions such as diabetes or hypoxia and the accumulation tends to be diffuse.

Question 40

What are the two types of CNS carbohydrate accumulations?

Answer 40

Lafora bodies - composed of acid mucopolysaccharides. Seen in familial myoclonic epilepsy.
Corpora amylaceae - usually extracellular, seen in meninges, ventricles, and ependyma. They usually have no pathologic significance (sign of aging)

Question 41

Is protein accumulation pathologic?

Answer 41

Usually yes. Can cause a variety of diseases depending on location and protein.

Question 42

What is Mallory’s alcoholic hyalin?

Answer 42

Condensed cytoskeletal protein seen in the cytoplasm in a patient who has been exposed to high alcohol levels for long time. Also has large, clear spaces of macrosteatosis.